


what it's like to outfly the night

by kimaracretak



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bisexual Female Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, F/F, Foreshadowing, Prophetic Visions, Slow Build, Telepathy, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-19 09:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8199542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: (i call upon the spirit that lives in a noble heart / grant me the passion that's within my veins / shades of the dead are sliding on the wall / demons dance in the castle hall): "There's something coming, Anna," Elizabeth insisted, staring into the camera like she was looking straight into Anna's eyes. "I feel it, I can feel it everywhere, it's something in the records that no one's ever connected before, and I think it was sleeping, but not ... not anymore. God, I hope you feel this." Something crashed in the background of Elizabeth's holo, and she winced. "I have to go. I'll try to tell you what I find. But please be careful. Please ... watch, like we used to."Or; A whole-series AU where Anna Sheridan captains the station instead of John





	1. 2247 || & the reek of bones

**Author's Note:**

> title from Siri Nilsen, '[Iron Sky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC2XFyNQNoQ)', summary quote from Ayreon, '[The Castle Hall'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2CLiZzZ5N8)
> 
> nosekisses to catherine for being a literal godsend of a beta per usual

Anna Sheridan was a commander when her life stopped for the first time. Frozen, like all the rest of her crew, in a silence too deep to be real. Around them spun only debris, metal and dust, blood and bone so small that not even the Minbari's technology could piece her lost flagship back together. The _Lexington_ and her sister-ships were alone.

"It's gone," her navigator murmured, and with his voice came back the alarms, the fires, her own blood rushing in her ears. "It's gone, and ..."

He had no words to finish the sentence. Anna had no words, either, though she could feel the necessary ones crowding behind her teeth. Repairs, commands. They all felt so useless in the face of a debris field so vast, a victory so materially small.

But for the first time since the start of the war, her silence meant _hope_.

 

**

 

_Anna holds._

_She places her body in front of her planet with twenty thousand others, with her husband and her friends and her crew and --_

_\-- she does not crumble when inexplicable, unexpected silence falls again._

_That takes much, much longer._


	2. 2249 || hard as a smile

"You're kidding me."

Over the course of her marriage she'd had plenty of reasons to say those exact words to John. When he showed her the house he wanted them to buy. When he brought home a stray cat. When he took her to France for their second anniversary, a celebration of the longest marriage she'd ever been a part of. But this was different, there was a weight to it that she'd thought she would never have to hear again now that the war was well and truly over.

"I'm not," he said, and the sparkle in his eye was enough to make Anna wish that she could be _happy_  he wasn't joking.

Anna sighed and stabbed at her salad with more force than strictly necessary, sending roasted almonds skittering across her plate and half the table. "You're accepting a position heading the botanical section of the San Diego rebuilding project, and moving to the middle of somewhere that is halfway still a nuclear wasteland to plant orange trees, and you're not kidding me." To be fair, it did sound like a project specifically designed for John.

"Isn't this _exactly_  what we fought for?" He leaned across the table, his own salad long abandoned. "To save Earth, to survive, to _grow_?"

"You don't think it's _settling_ , after all we've seen? After we're finally joining the galactic community as _members_ , not just little children to be encouraged with nuclear weapons to go home to bed?" She thought of yesterday's email, reminding her that she had two weeks to accept either the early retirement being offered to anyone who had held a command at the Line or a transfer to a survey ship guard post close to the Rim. John must have received something similar, but she never would have imagined he would take the retirement option, not when she was _aching_  to move out towards the Rim.

John shook his head. "No. Absolutely not. It's doing the exact same thing down here --" he gestured towards the city sprawling outside the window "-- that we did up there. With fewer bullets flying." His voice softened. "Anna, aren't you tired?"

Well. No avoiding it any longer then. She took a deep breath, met his eyes. "No. The opposite, actually. My new orders came in yesterday. If I stay with Earthforce they have me on running escort for survey ships in the Rim."

Anna could practically see the mental math working itself out in John's head: probable assignment length, probable hazard bonus, definite communication lags. "And you're taking it? Just like that?"

Maybe, years ago, she would have had a different answer. Before she watched her captain die, before enough ships were lost in a Line held by will above all else that she still saw them every night, supernovae exploding behind her closed eyes again and again. But four years had passed, and all she had left to say was, "Yes. I'm sorry."

"Well." John smiled again, but she could see that the levity was forced now. He reached for the wine bottle, topped off both their glasses. "To new adventures, then, I suppose."

Anna smiled too, small and tight. It wasn't like they'd never been separated by missions before, she thought as she raised her glass to meet John's in his toast. They had agreed early on that they would never interfere with the other's career. But in the crystalline _ring_  that hung in the air between them long after she thought it ought to have faded, she couldn't help but hear a much deeper separation.

 

**

 

_Anna wanders._

_Space slips easy around her, cold metal against skin and the stars to illuminate her eyes, click-spark-slide as new worlds unfold and --_

_\-- there is no void in the Outer Rim._

_There can never be void when there is so much life._


	3. 2254 || chance doesn't exist

"You have one new communication." The computer chimed at Anna before she was halfway through the door to her quarters.

She closed her eyes. "From whom?" _Not John, not John._  Things between them had been ... _fine_  since the divorce went through, but it was a fragilely-balanced _fine_  that seemed to rely on only the most necessary and businesslike communications.

"Elizabeth Lochley."

Anna sat down hard on her bed, and the springs squeaked in protest as she unzipped her boots. Apart from her ex-husband, her ex-wife was, perhaps, the one person in the galaxy she least expected to hear from. But if Elizabeth was calling her, that at least meant she was still alive, and something in Anna warmed in response.

"Is she waiting on a call, or did she leave a message?" She kicked her boots into the corner, reached up to unbraid her hair. How could computers manage to be so adept and so simultaneously awful at telling her what she wanted to know?

"Doctor Elizabeth Lochley left a two minute and thirty-five second audio and visual message commencing at 1343 hours ship's time."

_Doctor, huh?_  Anna smiled despite her exhaustion. Elizabeth had been trying so hard to pull her life back together when Anna met her, and though it had taken them hardly three months to realise that their relationship and especially their marriage was not at all helpful for that, Anna still thought of her fondly. She had meant to look her up, after the war, but in the chaos her efforts had never gone further than checking for Elizabeth's name on the most obvious casualty lists.

"Play the message," she instructed, tucking her feet up underneath her and settling more comfortably into bed.

Elizabeth's holo popped up from the message console on the desk, and even from across the room Anna could tell that she looked ... better. _Happy,_  maybe, without the grief that cloaked her years ago, but there was still something unsettled about her eyes.

"Hey, Anna," Elizabeth's holo said uncertainly. "I know you might not want to hear from me, especially after all that's happened and everything we never said. And too many things we did say." She laughed ruefully, and Anna winced at the memory of some of their arguments. "Anyway, this isn't, um, official or anything, and technically I'm not supposed to be sending this, but I have to tell someone. And there ... well, apart from my labmates, there isn't anyone except you."

That tone of voice, that obsessive spark in her eye ... it was almost a memory, Elizabeth on a poorly-balanced drug cocktail kneeling over her with sage, chanting, _just you just me enclosed within a shrine and there kept alone_. But everything was different now, Elizabeth's pixelated eyes clear.

"I'm working with IPX now," Elizabeth continued. "And it's ... I know you're working in the Outer Rim, our contacts in Earthforce got me that much, and I can't say where we're going but it's ... close. There's something moving out there, Anna, I know you never wanted to believe me but I also know you always felt it too."

There was a pleading note in her voice, and Anna _did_  remember, despite the years. Bits and pieces of Elizabeth's half-formed babbling in those awful moments when wasn't truly awake, when Anna thought she might _never_  reawaken. _Beautiful beautiful skyfall, you're going to stand under it lovely Anna, lovely Anna arms outstretched and stop the sky._  At the time, she had put it down to drugs, or Elizabeth's withdrawal, but she had never been able to shake the chills that wracked her body for hours afterwards.

And years later, the Minbari _had_  tried to bring down the sky.

"There's something coming, Anna," Elizabeth insisted, staring into the camera like she was looking straight into Anna's eyes. "I feel it, I can feel it _everywhere_ , it's something in the records that no one's ever connected before, and I think it was sleeping, but not ... not anymore. God, I _hope_  you feel this." Something crashed in the background of Elizabeth's holo, and she winced. "I have to go. I'll try to tell you what I find. But please be careful. Please ... watch, like we used to."

The holo flickered out, and Anna reached half-consciously for her blanket, drawing it tight around her. Any warmth she had felt at seeing Elizabeth alive and successful had ebbed too quickly upon hearing her speak.

_Like we used to._  Anna didn't remember much from those days, didn't, usually, want to. Elizabeth had been flighty, reeling from her lover's death and her family's abandonment, Anna had cast herself as rebel and saviour in equal parts. It was no wonder they had fallen apart so spectacularly so quickly.

And now, Elizabeth's very real fear was pulling at the parts of Anna that always felt guilty for not having wanted to believe her earlier, shadows chasing shadows across a sun.

The Outer Rim was so, so strange.

She looked up Elizabeth's return address with trembling fingers. Typed out one word: _okay._

 

**

 

_Anna listens._

_To the song between the stars, to the winds on abandoned planets, to the voices of old lovers in her ears, to the news reports of all the places she has ever called home and --_

_\-- though she listens, she does not hear._

_It is not yet time for that._

_It will be soon enough._


	4. 2256 || embrace the storm

Despite everything, she still tried to put Elizabeth's words out of her mind. Tried to lose herself in the mindless routines and petty problems of ship's business: this planet, now this one, actually you need to divert to deal with a pack of raiders, but before that can you let one of the scientists come over to get better trained on military-grade radio telescope probes?

And it did work, for a time. Elizabeth never called her again, and not even Anna's security clearance could help pin down her IPX assignment. She and John had rebuilt their friendship, and he somehow managed to sneak a holo of his baby orange groves into one of the infrequent supply runs that came out far enough to meet her. It hummed away gently in the corner of her desk, reminding her that whatever Elizabeth had thought she sensed, it wasn't near her and her crew.

But Anna Sheridan was still a commander when her life stopped for the second time.

The _Kyoto_ was in the middle of one of the few brief lulls between transport runs, and Anna had them camped out near the Illirium jumpgate, whose tape-delayed ISN broadcasts could be counted on to be somewhat less delayed than the others in the area. It was nowhere near the same as being in central space, but it was close enough.

The day was normal. Looking back, that's what she always remembered the most: it was _normal_. Sitting in the mess hall, laughing as Catherine Sakai recounted the latest prank she'd played on her on-again off-again boyfriend. Halfway listening to some of the science crew taking bets on how long the latest Babylon station would last, Nicholson insisting that Thorsdottir's architecture studies gave her an unfair advantage. Until the last few minutes of the news segment, when those for whom the news was a regular occurrence would long have stopped paying attention.

_"The Interplanetary Explorations research vessel Icarus has officially been presumed lost by the company. The ship, on a classified archaeology mission in the Omega sector, dropped out of contact two weeks ago. A search and retrieval attempt yesterday was unsuccessful. IPX will be releasing the crew manifest once next of kin have been notified."_

Dimly, Anna heard her glass crash to the floor. The _Icarus._  So that had been Elizabeth's ship. She didn't need to hear the crew manifest to _know_ , just like she had always known and always ignored that in all of Elizabeth's ramblings there was some truth of what was to come. And now she was dead, because Anna hadn't wanted to listen.

"Commander? Anna? _Anna._ "

She blinked slowly, coming back to awareness with Catherine's concerned face hovering in front of her. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Too many things to name, Anna thought, and even as she shook her head she was powerless to stop the disbelieving smile she could feel on her lips. "I, uh. The _Icarus._  That was ... that was my ex-wife's ship."

" _Oh._ " The pity on Catherine's face was suffocating. "Oh, Anna, I'm so sorry."

"No," Anna muttered. Pity was the last thing she wanted. Pity led to a desire for explanations, and nothing about Elizabeth needed to be told. "No, I ... it was a really long time ago, I hadn't spoken to her in ..." Two years, she had almost said, but did the holo really count?

No one else seemed to have noticed a thing. Catherine's grip tightened on her hand. "I'm here, you know, if you want to talk."

"I don't," Anna said quickly. Catherine had become one of her best friends in the years since she left John, and while there were some things she understood implicitly -- Anna's desire to stay in Earthforce, how hard long assignments in deep space were -- there were other things Anna could never, ever bring up. Like her suspicion that maybe the only thing Elizabeth had seen coming two years ago was her death.

"Okay," Catherine said, and her eyes were sadder than Anna's own. "But I mean it, Anna ..."

Anna forced a real smile on her face as she stood up. "I know, Cath, thank you. But I'll be fine. It was just ... a surprise. I'm gonna..." She slipped her hand from Catherine's grasp to gesture at the door. "I'll be fine."

The walk back to her quarters was longer than she remembered it being.  _Fine, yes_ , she reflected, slumping back against the cold metal of her door as soon as it closed behind her. Anna wasn't at all sure anything would be fine again.

 

**

 

_Anna waits._

_In the silence of the stars she holds her breath and counts to a hundred again and again and again and --_

_\-- still Elizabeth's face never leaves her mind._

_Her eyes are open now, to the twisted remnants of dead ages._

_It is almost her time._


	5. 2258 || signs & portents

The fifth Babylon project didn't fail. It still surprised Anna, sometimes, when she set foot on the station and it _held_ , steel and electricity cocooning her against the night.

Not so Catherine, who seemed to treat Babylon 5 as just another port, though Anna knew for sure it was her first time on the station.

"Come on," she nudged Catherine as they waited for the two Drazi ahead of them in the customs line to finish arguing with the beleaguered Earthforce officer. "You can't tell me this isn't cool."

Catherine rolled her eyes. "New planets are _cool_ , Anna. Previously undiscovered minerals are _cool._  Space stations mean I'm not finding either of those things."

"This from a woman who tells me how much she hates hyperspace every time a jumpgate opens."

"Ah, the privilege of non-pilots," Catherine sighed as the Drazi finally shuffled off and the Earthforce officer waved them forward. "Come on. I'm dying for real food, especially since my associates are paying for it."

"Lucky bastard." Anna handed over their ID cards and declaration sheets, grateful once again that they had decided to put her down as Catherine's captain in order to avoid the routine hour-long production of _Catherine Sakai v. Customs Office_. "Bring me along?"

The customs officer scribbled notes on Catherine's declaration as she pulled a face. "Sorry." The question and answer, too, were routine after years of on-and-off business partnerships. "But look at it this way. You'll get to enjoy all the alien religious festivals," she gestured to the welcome banner as the customs officer stamped their cards and waved them through, "while _I_  will be stuck in meetings."

Phrased that way, it did sound rather like Anna was getting the better end of things. "I'll share food if you will," she said.

"Deal," Catherine grinned and took her ID card back. "I'll see you tonight!" She waved as she headed off for the bank of lifts, and Anna sighed and wandered off in search of a programme for the religious festivals.

 

*

 

"Can I help you?"

The voice at her side started Anna, and she spun around from the sign she had been trying to decipher to face another Earthforce officer, brown hair pulled back in an impeccable braid that seemed out of place with her slightly rumpled uniform. "Uh, maybe. Hi. Anna Sheridan, EAS _Kyoto._ "

The other woman's handshake was firm, and Anna decided immediately that she liked her. "Susan Ivanova. I'm the station's XO. I'm sorry there wasn't anyone to greet you."

She knew, Anna thought, she _had_  to know. One of the benefits of working out on the Rim was that fewer people tried to tack a "...who brought down the _Black Star_ " to the end of her introduction. But if Ivanova didn't want to bring it up ... Anna grinned wryly. "Please, I'm just escorting some surveyors. You seem to have your hands full, anyway."

"An understatement," Ivanova sighed. "If I have to confiscate one more ceremonial knife..." She trailed off. "But I was seeing if I could help you out with anything."

Anna shoved her hands in her pockets. "Well, my friend abandoned me for business meetings, which leaves me in the enviable position of having about as much free time as there are alien religious ceremonies."

"Let me guess," Ivanova said, the hint of a smile finally tugging at the stern corners of her mouth, "and rather more free time than there are signs in Standard."

"Rather more than there are signs at all," Anna agreed.

"Ah, yes, budget cuts." Ivanova smiled for real then. "Well, if you're in the mood for a party, the Centauri festival is supposed to be starting soon. A day-long feast, Ambassador Mollari said. The entire command staff is going, I can walk with you."

"That sounds like the exact antidote to the journey in from the Rim," Anna said. "Though," she gestured to her bag, "I should probably stop by my quarters and drop this off first, if you don't mind?"

Ivanova quirked an eyebrow. "Why, Ms Sheridan, are you propositioning me?"

"While you're on duty?" Anna laughed. "Never."

Ivanova laughed too, and Anna decided that, yes, they were definitely going to be good friends.

 

*

 

"You will never, ever guess who I met last night," Catherine declared, breezing into their shared guest quarters at what was surely an ungodly hour and bringing with her a faint hint of perfume and entirely too much light.

Anna yanked her pillow out from under her head to cover her eyes, groaning as her head hit the unyielding mattress. "A spending the night friend," she grumbled. "Why the light."

"Sorry," Catherine said. Anna heard a vague rustling, and then the lights dimmed to a bearable level. "Maybe I should ask what happened to _you_  first."

The pillow wasn't actually that uncomfortable covering her face, Anna decided. It could stay there for a while. "Centauri religious festival."

"I _think_  there was English in there." She can imagine Catherine's frown.

Anna lifted her hand, intending to mime drinking, but frowned as it fell back to the bed. "Centauri. Religion. Wine. Who _did_  you meet?"

There was a long pause. Anna wondered if Catherine was reconsidering the merits of trying to hold a conversation with a hungover pillow. Anna would be, in her place. God, she hadn't drunk that much in celebration in ... years. Finally, Catherine said, "Jeffery Sinclair."

Anna's frown deepened, though Catherine couldn't see. Sinclair. Wasn't he the station's commander? Hadn't he been at the Centauri feast? Susan had introduced her quickly to most of the command staff, but the time she hadn't spent drinking she remembered spending studiously avoiding the Minbari ambassador's eyes. The commander's name was definitely been Sincl -- and then an older memory caught up with her tired mind. "Jeffrey 'My Shithead Ex Jeff' Sinclair?"

" _There_  you go," Catherine sighed, and Anna winced as the other bed's springs creaked ominously. "I swear to god, Anna, I cannot _believe_  you didn't tell me he was the station commander."

"'S a Babylon station," Anna muttered. "Thought you knew." News was spotty out on the Rim, but as she came to better terms with being awake, she remembered that she _had_  known of Sinclair at least a year or two ago.

"Well, I didn't," Catherine said. "Last time I saw him, he was with another woman. I said I'd stay away from him, since we never managed to make our relationship work."

Anna snorted, finally pulling the pillow away from her face to fix Catherine with a disbelieving look. "One: that's dumb. Two: _failure_."

Catherine shook her head. "Why am I having this conversation with you before you've had coffee?"

Anna, the hungover, coffee-less and therefore possibly more injured party, shrugged. "Because I can still offer sympathy?" Catherine was usually the one with relationship advice in their friendship; she, with two divorces, the one wondering where said advice was in her life years ago.

"Sympathy," Catherine echoed, though she didn't sound very convinced. She tossed her own pillow at Anna. "Come on. Shower, get dressed, and we can trade stories for real over coffee. My treat."

Anna sat up gingerly and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "Station coffee. A delight."

" _Me_ , a delight."

And she couldn't really argue with that.

 

*

 

Finding a place in Red Sector that was neither overly crowded nor offering coffee that was indistinguishable from engine oil turned out to be slightly more difficult than Anna had expected, but soon enough they were settled in a small, hidden away place offering _exotic specialty drinks_. Anna was fairly sure at least half the drinks involved some sort of contraband, but she had more important things to think about at the moment.

"So," she fixed Catherine with a look over the rim of her mug. "You and Jeff have been somewhere different every time I've run into you the past seven years. What's up _now_?"

"I'm ... not entirely sure," Catherine admitted. "We had dinner, is all, he showed me around the station some, but that's usually how things start up again."

Anna shrugged. "Well, did you miss him?" For all that she had loved both Elizabeth and John, she hadn't truly _missed_  either of them much after they separated. Elizabeth she missed in death, but after two years even that pain was more an occasional reminder rather than a constant state of numb shock.

"It's not that simple."

"Why can't it be? It's as decent of a relationship foundation as any, when you find something, no matter how interesting or dull, and your first thought is _oh, I wish so-and-so was here to see this_."

"Is that how you decided when to get a divorce? When you didn't think that anymore?"

"Yeah," Anna said. "When Elizabeth was so far out of her head that walking away was better for me than trying to help her. When John and I realised that honouring our promise to not interfere with each other's careers meant accepting we would probably never see each other again."

Catherine sipped her coffee thoughtfully. "Some people would call that running away."

Anna shrugged. "Sure. I prefer to think of it as knowing when a good thing has become tedious for everyone involved. You and Jeff, though, you pick up right where you left off, all the time. I think you do miss him."

"I _do_." Catherine propped her chin in her hand. "I just ... I'm tired of it. Doing the same thing every few years. Sure we pick up right where we left off, but it's just different points on the same bloody circle."

Anna hid her grin behind another sip of coffee. "See? You just answered your own question. I remain an entirely useless bit player in grand romance sagas."

"Silly." Catherine kicked her ankle under the table. "You were helpful. Really. Now I just ... need to figure out if Jeff feels the same way."

"I ... can't even pretend to be helpful there."

Catherine laughed. "Oh, believe me, I know. But that's enough of my moping." She set her mug down decisively. "What were you up to last night? I haven't seen you that hungover in ... ever."

"The Centauri religious festival." Her head hurt just _thinking_  about it. "I ran into the station's XO after you left, and she said the command staff was going and I was welcome to come along. Ambassador Mollari passed out on the table."

Catherine snorted. "You mean _at_  the table?"

Anna shook her head ruefully. "I mean _on_  the table. Jumped up there, yelled about some of the god statues, and," she leaned forward, lowering her voice conspiratorially, "became _one with his inner self._ "

It was a terrible impersonation of Mollari's poor aide, but it sent them both into gales of laughter loud enough to attract stares from nearby tables.

"Definitely the highlight of the festival," Anna said once she'd gotten her giggles under control. "Between that and avoiding the Minbari ambassador, it was ... certainly a night."

"The Minbari ambassador?" Catherine raised her eyebrows. "Oh, do tell."

Anna groaned, laughter already long forgotten. A decade on and this was still the worst part of being back in central space, being faced with the Minbari and the remnants of the war everyday. Her only comfort was that most of the Minbari have only a name and rank to call _Starkiller_ , not a face. But surely the ambassador would. "She's ... I dunno, it's just, weird. Spending two full years trying and failing to blow their ships to hell while they try and _don't_  fail to do the same to ours, and then _not_  seeing them for years, and then finding yourself at a high-level Centauri party at a table next to her like she's just another politician and you're just another soldier?" She stared morosely into the dregs of her coffee.

"Was it really that awful?" Catherine asked. Anna reminded herself, not for the first time, that Catherine, too, had been on the Line.

But the problem, as far as Anna was concerned, was that it _hadn't_  been that bad. Delenn was stunning, small and hard and sharp like she could slit your throat with just a look. She was _magnetic_ , and if Anna were honest with herself she had avoided Delenn so studiously not because she was afraid Delenn would recognise her and hate her, but because she was afraid that Delenn would recognise her and not care.

"The Minbari are doing their own ceremony tomorrow," she said, leaving Catherine's question unanswered. "Something about rebirth. I was thinking about going."

" _Really._ "

"Yeah." Anna shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I mean, _they're_  not going to apologise for the war, and _I'm_  not going to apologise for how I destroyed the _Black Star_ , but maybe ... this'll mean I don't have to avoid them every time I'm in central space." It sounded silly even to her own ears, and she read disbelief in Catherine's silence.

Finally, Catherine shook her head. "Just be careful, okay?"

They were, Anna thought, ten years and more past _careful_. "Sure," she said, as if it were as easy as the word.

"Thanks," Catherine smiled. She looked at her chrono and grimaced. "Sorry, I should go, but Anna..."

"I know," Anna said. "Good luck. With your meetings, and with Jeff."

She was going to go to the rebirth ceremony, she resolved, as Catherine left. And even if it went terribly, she would be off the station soon, and could always find creative ways to avoid returning.

 

*

 

It was immediately obvious to Anna that although Delenn was an ambassador now, this sort of ceremony was what she had known first and best. The way she moved, the way she spoke, Anna was hardly sure she was on the station anymore. It was unsettling, in a way even her first experience in hyperspace hadn't been.

Delenn's voice rose and fell, and in the gallery, Anna shifted uncomfortably. The incense made the small room cloying, and every time Delenn glanced in her direction Anna looked away, not ready for the truth she would find there. She was one among many and yet she was so cold, every word walling her in.

_...to the end of time._

It was almost a threat. Sinclair was staring at Delenn; he, too, seemed caught.

The tiny red fruit in her hand was innocuous, but so, so heavy. She bit into it, shivered and shut her eyes as its icy light exploded across her tongue.

_...and so it begins._

Now her eyes caught Anna's, and Anna knew immediately that she had been right to avoid Delenn because she was falling, _falling_  like she really had been wrenched from the station and thrown into --

\-- thrown into --

Delenn's eyes were vast and everything but kind, like a feeling before a name, and Anna --

\-- and Anna --

She didn't remember closing her eyes, but she must have, to get away from the blank abyss that seemed to want her as much as it made her want, because it took far too long before she was able to open them again to the sound of the people on either side of her standing, Delenn and her aide clearing their table.

Everyone seemed to leave much more quickly than they'd arrived, but Anna caught up with Ivanova a little way down the hall.

"I was surprised to see you again," Ivanova said. "I must say, out of all the people who would be at a Minbari ceremony..."

Anna sighed. "I don't have regrets from the war. That doesn't mean it's an easy thing to carry." Ivanova just looked at her, and Anna couldn't read her face. "Anyway. The Minbari ambassador, is she ... always like that?"

"No." Ivanova's answer was immediate. Anna raised an eyebrow. "In fact," Ivanova continued, "That was downright comprehensible."

She meant to be comforting, perhaps, but as she walked away all Anna could think was that she was still falling, and Delenn knew why

 

*

 

Catherine didn't return that night. Probably for the best that she was off with Sinclair, Anna thought as she paced their quarters. She felt ... _marked_ , somehow. The taste of the Minbari fruit lingered in her mouth, and she didn't feel up to spending another night with a seemingly unending stream of alcohol bottles.

Anna did not sleep well that night. She wasn't really sure if she slept at all.

But by morning, when Catherine came in with leftover pancakes and a more genuine smile than Anna had seen her wear in quite some time, she had, at least, resolved to think no more of it.

"Let me guess," Anna said from the bed where she was looking over her engineer's report about the atrocious quality of Babylon 5's spare parts and studiously ignoring the amount of packing she had yet to do. "You and Jeff are officially in the on-again stage of your game."

"Yeah," Catherine's smile widened. "Maybe even for good this time."

"Well, look at that, Catherine Sakai getting sentimental and dull and halfway married in her old age."

Catherine threw a pancake at her, and snorted as Anna tried and failed to drop her tablet and catch it. "Asshole. Maybe you're the dull and halfway married one, considering the Minbari ceremony."

"I what?" Anna managed around a mouthful of pancake, trying to ignore the chill that even the mention of the ceremony set off.

"It doubles as a marriage ceremony," Catherine said, starting to pick up the clutter that had accumulated over the past few days. "What, didn't you know?"

"No," Anna muttered, pancake dropping abandoned from numb fingers to the bedside table. Suddenly she couldn't get the image of Delenn's eyes out of her head.

 _...and so it begins_.

She hadn't thought to ask _what_  was beginning.

She was silent for so long that Catherine turned to stare at her. "God, Anna, I'm _kidding._  If it's a marriage ceremony, there needs to be red fruit, and lingering glances, and..." She trailed off, and Anna wondered if she looked as pale as she felt. " _Was_ there?"

The fruit had been as bright and cold as Delenn's gaze. Anna shoved her thin blanket away and grabbed her tablet again. "I don't wanna talk about it. I need to shower before we go."

Catherine blinked. "Okay," she said slowly. "But you know we're probably going to be back here after the next survey run."

"Don't remind me," Anna grumbled. She was happy for Catherine's Q-40 discovery, but right then, she would have given almost anything to be heading out to another long, fruitless search of the Rim.

 

*

 

They returned to Babylon 5 far too quickly for Anna's liking. There was a tension to the station too alike to the feeling of inevitability that had been pulling at her all through the Minbari ceremony, and she rather doubted that the Psi Corps vessel six docking bays over was entirely to blame. To this too Catherine seemed immune, and Anna pushed aside her irritation as best she could.

She had had some dealings with the Corps before, and while all the commercial telepaths she had meet had been perfectly pleasant, the rumours about the higher levels of the Corps were impossible to ignore. There was nothing quite so unsettling as the idea that the Corps could know anything about you they cared to with just a flicker of thought.

In this as in many other things Ivanova was a kindred spirit, and as they watched the station's resident commercial telepath mediate Catherine's business meeting several tables over -- or, to be more accurate, while Anna watched the Zocalo and Ivanova watched Talia Winters -- Anna found herself tentatively starting to hope for another friendship that could survive her deep space missions.

"Have you ever actually said more than three words to her?" Anna finally asked, as Talia smiled at something Catherine had said.

"What?" Ivanova scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous, she's Psi Corps."

Anna hummed noncommittally and sipped her drink. "Because you're staring at her the same way Catherine stares at pictures of Jeff. Except with slightly less sap and slightly more hatred."

"I don't hate _her._ " Susan sighed and leaned back against the bar. "I just can't figure out why she ... oh, _that's_  interesting." She leaned forward as a Narn joined Catherine's table.

Anna frowned, struck by a familiarity she couldn't quite place. "Is that ...?"

"Ambassador G'Kar," Susan confirmed, and the memory fell into place: G'Kar, silent and distrustful, alone in the middle of the rebirth ceremony.

The _damn_  rebirth ceremony, that was not content to bear her and let her go, but that must follow her every time she came back to central space.

But she tried to keep her face blank, just arching an eyebrow. "Well. I except I'll be hearing all about that later tonight."

Susan's link chimed before she could reply. "Sorry," she said, setting down her glass. "Either it's something actually important to the station, or it's important that I act like it is, but ..."

"Don't worry about it. I've been there."

Susan headed off, leaving Anna to weigh the merits of continued people-watching against those of shopping.

 

*

 

Catherine, it turned out, had at least three languages' worth of things to say about her meeting with G'Kar, none of the complimentary. "...and after all that, the best he can come up with is _dangerous?_  As if the _siu lan yeung_..." Anna braced herself for another tide of mostly-incomprehensible Cantonese, but Catherine just flung herself into the room's sole chair in dismay. "Dangerous, my ass, that's the entire point. The Q-40's worth it."

"Is it?" Anna asked. "Surveying on the Rim when we never know what we'll find is one thing, but the Narns have had years to collect good reasons to stay away from Sigma 957."

Catherine snorted. "He wouldn't tell me any of the reasons. Which makes me think they're not very good at all."

"Which makes me think that you're going anyway, and probably finding some way to convince me to completely disregard Earthforce regulations and come along with you."

Catherine brightened considerably at that. "Can we?"

"No." Catherine made a face. "At least not until I talk to the Ambassador."

"Fine," Catherine sighed. Anna shut her eyes and thanked the cosmos for small mercies.

 

*

Anna wasn't sure what to expect when she arrived at G'Kar's office the next morning, but the recognition in his eyes wasn't it. "Commander Sheridan!" he greeted her. "Come in, please. Can I have my aide get you anything?"

"Uh, no," Anna said, somewhat taken aback. "How did you -- but I'm not here for me."

"Of course you're not." He smiled slightly, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers in a way eerily reminiscent of one of her old Academy instructors. "You're here because Ms Sakai wants to go to Sigma 957, and I won't permit that, and you don't want her to cause a scene."

Anna bristled at the implication. "No. I'm here as her friend, and as the captain of the Earthforce ship that has escorted her on multiple survey runs. And out of curiosity."

G'Kar tilted his head, considering. "Well. Sit down, then."

Anna took the offered chair only somewhat reluctantly. "Ambassador, I don't know how your conversation went yesterday, but you need to understand that in our profession, danger is not only in the nature of our job, it's part of the attraction. If there's something we need to know..."

"Ah, you see, there is your first mistake," G'Kar said. "You assume that dangers must be known in order to be qualified."

Anna blinked, Elizabeth's voice from decades past echoing behind G'Kar's words: _don't think Anna love it's ruined if you know it it's there, feel it feel it let it walk let it fall..._  She shook her head, irritated at herself. That was in the past, the present was an ambassador's office and negotiation of mining access. Still she heard herself say, "The last person who told me that was --" She cut herself off. Elizabeth's memory was not for him.

But G'Kar leaned forward, as if he sensed her uncertainty. "You have seen things beyond that which Ms Sakai ever will. I do not say this to denigrate her, but if you care for her life, you will keep her away from Sigma 957. Things move there that never should move."

_There's something coming I can feel it and I think it's been asleep..._

And suddenly Anna knew exactly what she had to do. "I'm sorry, Ambassador. But we can and will go over your head for this."

G'Kar sighed. "I can't say I didn't expect you to say that." He stood up, and Anna followed suit. "If you are determined, I cannot stop you. But walk softly."

"Thank you, Ambassador."

He walked her to the door, and his voice was almost sad as he replied, "I am not at all sure you should be thanking me."

 

*

 

Catherine's delight that Anna had managed to get them access to Sigma 957 was tempered only by her confusion that Anna had decided to come with her. "I mean, I appreciate the company," she said, as Anna twisted herself round trying to get comfortable in the _Skydancer_ 's rarely used copilot's seat, "but you've gone to so much trouble not letting Earthforce in on this, and I wonder."

Anna sighed and decided to give up on any thought of the seat becoming comfortable. "G'Kar said something to me. _Things move there that never should move._  And it reminded me too much of..."

"Oh?" Catherine glanced sidelong at her. "Reminded you of what?"

She had never taken Catherine up on her offer to talk about Elizabeth, but just as she was wondering whether to open that particular chapter of history, the space in front of them _ripped._

A jumpgate, Anna would have said if she were asked, but it wasn't, really -- a memory of one, or -- she reached out blindly and grabbed Catherine's hand as the _Skydancer_  pitched forward. Colours whirled across her vision, red-green-blue and underneath all of them something so dark it would never have a name.

Catherine was cursing beside her, a frantic blur of English and Cantonese that was mostly drowned by the rushing in Anna's ears, the colours spiralling spiralling _spiralling_ in front of her, and she didn't realise she had moved until she felt the cold of the bulkhead against her forehead. _A ship,_  Anna thought as the shadows moved across the viewer, light bent wrong around its shadows, none of it concealing the _presence_  underneath.

And then it was gone as suddenly as it had appeared, gone with a _crack_  that Anna felt in her bones though she knew that was an impossibility. Gone, and only Sigma 957 in front of them, and the alarms going off all around them.

"Computer, what the hell was _that_?" Catherine demanded, her voice shaking.

"Unknown. Reserve power levels at 5%. Planetary collision imminent."

" _How_  imminent?" Anna rubbed at her eyes, trying to erase the lingering sparks of colour still dancing in front of them.

"Two standard hours."

Anna bit back a comment about how that wasn't a useful definition of _imminent_  and tried to focus on thinking past the _crack_  still echoing through her mind. "Ideas?" she asked instead.

Catherine frowned, struggling out of her safety harness. "Not yet. But I bet I know more about my girl than the computer does."

The question was answered by a Narn frigate before Catherine had time to do more than assess the damage personally.

"Do you think the ambassador set us up?" Catherine asked, once they were safely under two and heading back to Babylon 5.

"No." Anna blinked against the colours still swirling across her vision. "I think that is exactly what he tried to warn us about. I have a better idea why he couldn't explain it now." She pulled her knees up to her chest, rested her chin on top of them, and tried not to think about the chill deeper than any that could be attributed to the _Skydancer_ 's lack of power that settled just under her skin.

 

*

 

G'Kar was waiting for them when they docked, ambassadorial privilege slipping them past the need for Customs with a kindness Anna wasn't sure was kind at all.

"You sent your ships after us," Anna said as soon as they were out of earshot of anyone else, gratitude for the rescue only slightly tempering the accusing note in her voice. "Why?"

"I am hardly a monster. There was no profit, no advantage in letting you fall to an untimely and most uncomfortable death. And you humans have proven quite incapable of looking out for your own safety. So ... why not?"

Catherine jammed her hands into the pockets of her flight suit. "That's not an answer."

G'Kar smiled. "Of course it is. It's just not one that like, or the one that you expected." Anna was struck again by how much he resembled her old professor. What was he doing as an ambassador? "No one here is entirely what they appear," he continued. "Not me, not the commander, not even you two." Was it Anna's imagination, or did his gaze linger on her longer than Catherine? "If I surprised you, all the better." He saluted, fist to chest, and turned to leave.

"Wait, Ambassador!" Catherine called after him, and Anna took a deep breath. "When we were out there, we saw ... something. What was it?"

He turned back, "The things that walk near Sigma 957 no more concerned with such definitions as they are with us. They are more than a feeling, less than a name, billions of years older than either of our races and vast, timeless. And if they care for us at all, they do not care to communicate. We know. We've tried."

"That's it?" Anna asked, as her heart beat _something something something_  against her ribs in Elizabeth's voice, and Catherine said, "That's all you know?"

"Yes," G'Kar said simply. "They are a mystery. And I am both terrified and reassured to know that there are still wonders in the universe, that we have not yet explained everything. Whatever they are, Ms Sakai, Commander Sheridan, they walk near Sigma 957. And I think you have seen why they must walk there alone. Good day."

Catherine glared at his retreating back. "He's just left us with more questions."

"No," Anna said slowly, the memory of colours across her eyes like the cold of the shadows out along the Rim. "I'm not sure he did."

Catherine stared in disbelief, but didn't say anything more.

 

*

 

Seasons had little meaning on deep space assignments, but this year Anna felt winter fall more acutely than she ever had planetside. She took her leave at the end of December, as Catherine was preparing to head back to Babylon 5. The station called her as much as the fear of what she might find there repelled her.

The station was starting to feel as familiar as her quarters on the _Kyoto_ , she thought ruefully as she cleared Customs easily. It was nearly as busy with New Year's Eve festivities as it had been during the religious ceremonies; even though few of the races on the station had calendars remotely like Earth's, they were all delighted by the opportunities for trade -- legal and illegal -- that the celebrations brought.

Catherine greeted her with Sinclair at her side, and Anna smiled to finally be formally introduced. "Commander Sinclair," she said, offering her hand. "It's nice to finally meet you. You've done quite well for Babylon 5, from what I've seen over the past few years."

"What?" he said in mock surprise as he shook her hand. "No threats about how I'd better be treating Catherine right or you'll drop me somewhere in the middle of the Rim and leave me to fend for myself?"

Anna's grin broadened. "I find those to be more effective later. After her paramours have been lulled into a false sense of security."

Catherine burst into laughter. "I knew you'd like each other!" she exclaimed in delight, and Anna pinned her with a look.

"Oh? Then why am I only meeting him after seven years?"

"I kept him in a cage," Catherine deadpanned. "This is actually the first time I've let him out since I found out he was in charge here."

Sinclair snorted, but the affection in his eyes as he gazed at Catherine was unmistakable, and it echoed hollow in Anna's heart against memories of times she had looked at John, at Elizabeth in the same way and seen herself reflected in their eyes. "Come on," he said, and Anna shoved the memories away. "Dinner in Red Sector? My treat, I have an Advisory Council session tomorrow and would like all the nice things I can before that."

Anna grimaced sympathetically. "Quadrant 37 again?" He nodded in resignation. "Better you than me," she shuddered.

"And that's why you should quit Earthforce to survey rocks," Catherine said smugly.

"I take it back," Anna said to Sinclair. "No threats, I hate her, you keep her."

Catherine elbowed her in the side. "Asshole."

Sinclair raised his hands and took a step back. " _Dinner._ Unless you've suddenly lost all interest in Fresh Air?"

Further teasing, Anna decided, could wait, with that incentive.

 

*

 

Anna spent much of the next day wandering the shops, trying to find small gifts for John and his sister that she could send back to Earth before shipping out to the _Kyoto_  again. Catherine was off with Jeff, and though she and Susan had had tentative plans to meet, but Susan messaged her around midday to say station business meant she wouldn't be able to make it after all.

Anna understood, but the prospect of an entire day with nothing to do was daunting. With neither of her friends around, and the perpetual questions marks of Ambassadors Delenn and G'Kar similarly absent, Babylon 5 seemed far emptier than it truly was.

 _Just me_ , she thought, making small talk with a couple off-duty junior officers. Just her, and the station, and the gathering sense that something was _happening happening about to happen..._

New Year's Eve arrived the next morning with little evidence to bear out her feeling of dread, however, and Anna smiled when she found a message from Catherine on her tiny room's Babcom unit inviting her to dinner with her and Jeff. _So, one of those idiots finally proposed_ , she thought. Not even the news, full of gloomy predictions about President Santiago's goodwill tour and Vice President Clark's health, could dispel her smile.

Susan joined them for dinner, as well as a man Sinclair introduced as his security chief and good friend, Michael Garibaldi. Susan she was glad to see again, but Garibaldi seemed almost skittish, wound up over something he was clearly trying and failing to not bring to the table.

"So," Anna said, as soon as their food arrived. "Which one of you proposed?"

"An _na_ ," they groaned in charming unison, and Catherine kicked her ankle under the table for good measure.

"'Neither' is a perfectly acceptable answer," she said primly as Garibaldi and Susan tried to stifle their laughter.

"It was me, if you must know," Sinclair grinned, and Garibaldi punched his arm affectionately.

Catherine stole a crouton off his plate. "I helped when he forgot how to speak," she said conspiratorially.

He sighed. "I thought we weren't going to mention that."

"It's fine, sir," Susan grinned, "we're just proud you tried."

Garibaldi's link chimed before anyone could respond. "Sorry," he grimaced as he stood up. "It's probably --" he hesitated, looking between Anna and Catherine, and suddenly Anna remembered Susan's _station business_  reason from yesterday. "There's a situation," he said, and Anna knew it was for her and Catherine's benefit because everyone else's faces had already darkened. "I gotta take this."

He returned quickly, saying only, _worse than we thought_ , to Sinclair, and though the rest of dinner was filled with wedding chatter, the mood never quite recovered. Susan left first, needing to get back to CnC, and Garibaldi followed soon after. Even faced with mint ice cream for dessert, Anna couldn't work up much of an appetite.

"I should go too," Sinclair apologised. "I'm sorry, Catherine, I'll try to meet you in the Zocalo for the Times Square broadcast, but..."

She smiled, but there wasn't much heart in it. "It's okay. I hope that whatever's going on isn't ... well, as bad as you think."

"I hope so too," he said, and Anna looked away as they kissed goodbye, staring out into the restaurant full of revelers. Sigma 957, she thought suddenly. _That_  was what the station reminded her of tonight: all the colours, all the anticipation, and the _crack_  and the _fall_ were ... were ...

She and Catherine found a much smaller cafe in the Zocalo to watch the Times Square broadcast. Sinclair didn't manage to join them, but as the countdown reached zero and ISN switched to the presidential press conference, she almost started to breathe easily again.

And then _Earthforce One_ exploded, and the _crack_  that could never be heard in space resonated in every one of Anna Sheridan's bones as she collapsed against Catherine and the crossroads she had felt looming over all of them for months dissolved into so much dust.

 

 

**

 

 

_Anna watches._

_On a city that is not a city she watches fractures ripple ever outwards, minds and worlds and dreams and governments and --_

_\-- there is no repair._

_Not yet, not when so much worse waits to be dealt._

_But so passes the city that has always been asked to hold, hold, hold on._

**Author's Note:**

> prologue section titles;  
> (i) 'this is why we fight', the decemberists  
> (ii) 'platinum', mastercastle  
> (iii) 'sensorium', epica  
> (iv) 'embrace the storm', stream of passion


End file.
